


The Scandal

by flitterflutterfly



Series: Please God, Let Me Live [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:52:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flitterflutterfly/pseuds/flitterflutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Irene Adler is a beautiful Domme and Sherlock Holmes is only human. After all, humans have the tendency to get very attached.</p><p>A continuation of Please God, Let Me Live into Season 2 of Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part one work with episode one. Part two works with episode three, and only with the end of it. It's just a taste of what Season 2 would be like in the PG,LML world.

Sitting in the Buckingham Palace across from his Dom’s older brother was not what John had expected to be doing this day, but the more he heard about this the more he became interested. Next to him, Sherlock, dressed in all black and still annoyed from their session being interrupted by Mycroft’s men, a whip on his waist and John’s wrists still covered in large cuffs, though no longer attached to anything, shifted against the couch.

“A professional Dominatrix,” Mycroft explained to the pair. “Irene Adler.”

“Professional?” John frowned. “That’s…”

“Subs pay for her, quite usually men and woman too unattractive to find free entertainment, too long collared to be satisfied, or too tired of those who just play at sadism to be happy,” Sherlock said, hands clasped in front of his chin. “Why, then, do these pictures matter?”

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed as John glanced between the brothers. “You know exactly why, Sherlock.”

“Young, dominant,” Sherlock’s lips twitched. “Quite sad it still is that Doms are so rarely accepted as masochists, isn’t it?”

“Get those pictures from Miss Adler, Sherlock,” Mycroft commanded.

Sherlock’s eyes flashed and John stood when he did. “I’ll do it because it is interesting, not because you think that you can out-dominate me, Mycroft.”

Mycroft inclined his head.

John frowned as they walked away. “Sherlock?”

“Christmas is approaching, John,” Sherlock said instead of answering the question on John’s lips. “I don’t suppose you have a present for me already?”

John let the distraction happen, shaking his head. “Don’t ruin my surprise by deducing it, sir.”

“As you wish, John,” Sherlock grasped the back of John’s neck in a strong grip, rubbing a thumb along the hairline. “Come, let’s go meet this,” he paused, “dominatrix.”

~.~.~.~

“So we’re just going to go knock on her door?” John blinked.

Sherlock looked in the distance, a frown playing on his lips. The common deep-thought expression, John thought fondly. “Come here,” he ordered.

John stepped closer, taking a long look around the alleyway they had stopped in. There was no one to observe. “Yes, sir?”

“I am going to bruise you, John,” Sherlock promised in a low voice. John shivered. “I want you to go in first. She’ll be expecting me, or someone from the government, I believe. But I need to see her reaction to your wound.”

“I understand, sir,” John said. “How do you want me.”

“As submissive as possible unless there is- no,” Sherlock rubbed a hand along John’s cheekbone, “even then. When I indicate is the only time you will break role, can you do that?”

It was awfully close to exhibition, but he remembered the conversation they’d had the month before in the taxicab during what he’d titled, on his blog that had grown quite high in popularity,  _The Great Game_. He could decide to disobey and not be punished, but he didn’t think he would. Too much of him was vibrating to do whatever possible to please his Dom.

“I can,” John nodded. “I will, sir.”

“Good,” Sherlock smiled. “Relax for me.”

John let his shoulders loosen as Sherlock crowded him against the alley wall. His breath quickened and he leaned his head back, Sherlock’s mouth working wetly on his jugular. A dark hickey, he thought, would be forming there, but Sherlock had said bruise.

As if in response to his thought, Sherlock’s fist came flashing in the edge of his vision and then John felt his knees go weak as endorphins suddenly flood his system, pain sparking on his face. His chin was grabbed roughly and brought up, a mouth claiming him in a hard press for possession.

“Sherlock,” John gasped, subspace already coming down him fast.

“I’ll take care of you, John,” Sherlock promised softly as his fingers began to make quick work of his trousers.

~.~.~.~

Irene Adler was not like expected, John thought as she appeared in the nude. He was kneeling carefully at his Dom’s feet, his chin carefully pointed to the floor, but he watched her out of the corner of his eye as she smiled at Sherlock.

“I don’t believe that Kate caught your name,” Irene said, treading close enough to touch either of them, but paying John no mind.

“Sherlock Holmes,” John couldn’t see his Dom’s face from his position, but Sherlock’s knee had constant contact with his shoulder and he felt it twitch. “Miss Irene Adler, I presume.”

“Look at those cheekbones,” Irene said. “I could cut myself slapping that face.” There was a pause and then an offer of, “would you like to try?”

John forced himself not to react, to continue his submissive posture. His Dom had asked it of him and, remarkably despite being so in front of another, Adler’s complete disregard for his existence was helping him remain in character, so to speak.

“Perhaps later,” Sherlock said finally.

Irene sighed and stepped back. “I can call the maid if you’d like some tea,” she informed them as she took a seat on the opposite chair, easily displaying herself for their, or rather Sherlock’s view.

“I had some at the palace,” Sherlock said. “We both did.”

John felt the dominatrix’s gaze sweep over him and then move back to his Dom. “I know.”

“Yes, I’d thought you might,” Sherlock confessed softly. There was concentration in his voice and John wondered what he was deducing from this Domme.

There was silence that stretched between them until finally Irene spoke. “Do you know the biggest problem with disguises, Mr. Holmes?” She was continuing on before he could answer. “However hard you try, it’s always a self-portrait.”

Sherlock said nothing to that at first. Instead, his hand came to smooth over John’s hair. John let the movement guide him to shift against his Dom, closing his eyes and letting the conversation wash over him. “Is that so?”

“Like this, now,” Irene said. “You bring your pet with you to give the show of control. To intimate me perhaps.” She laughed. “What it shows me is that you are damaged, delusional, and am too engrossed in your own power.”

Sherlock leaned back, his fingers not stopping in their movements.

“Now tell me,” Irene said after a moment. “I need to know. How’s it done? That hiker with the bashed in head.”

“What?” Sherlock asked.

“Come now,” Irene laughed. “You can tell me. I love a good detective story.”

“That’s not what I’m here for,” Sherlock said.

“No, you’re here for the photographs, which you’re not getting, so we’re stuck here chit-chatting, so tell me, the hiker,” Irene prodded.

There was something going on here, John thought, something beyond his level of comprehension. Dom games, power dynamics were being played out over his head, but Sherlock had asked him to remain quietly submissive and so he would.

~.~.~.~

Sherlock played the violin like he played John’s body, the Sub thought as his Dom finished off  _I Wish You A Merry Christmas_  with a flourish and bowed. Elegant, with just a bit of roughness and even more hidden power behind gentle strokes

“Lovely, Sherlock!” Mrs. Hudson cried. “I wish you would have worn the antlers.”

“Some things are best left to the imagination Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock murmured, giving John a beautiful smile that he bashfully returned.

The stairs creaked and then Molly came into view dressed in a long coat and carrying several bags. John quickly moved to help her out and she let him have the jacket, showing a flattering dress underneath. “The door said just to come in.”

“Of course,” John told her. “More the merrier.”

“Merry Christmas then, everyone,” Molly said.

“Hello, Molly,” the cries rang as Lestrade moved to get her a glass of wine.

“I thought you were in Dorset,” Molly said as she accepted it.

“Tomorrow,” Lestrade sighed. “Wife and I are back together again, for however long that lasts.”

“Nope, she’s sleeping with the P.E. instructor from the local school,” Sherlock said.

“Sir,” John groaned. “It’s Christmas.”

“A silly holiday if you ask me,” Sherlock sighed, but John knew he would celebrate it for John if nothing else.

“It’s the only time of the year where they have to be nice to me,” Mrs. Hudson was telling Molly.

“When are you two headed to your sister’s?” Lestrade asked.

“Tomorrow,” John told their friend. “First time in her life she’s cleaned up her act and is off the booze!”

Sherlock’s lips twitched and John sent him a warning look. He could hope, couldn’t he? Harry was his only sibling and despite Sherlock’s opinion of his own brother, John cared about her and what she was doing with her life.

Sherlock’s phone made a sigh and John looked towards him as he pulled it out of his pocket to the stunned looks of Molly and Lestrade. After a second he frowned, put it back, and approached the mantelpiece where he pulled off it a small red package. Without another word, he left the room.

John excused himself for a moment and followed, closing the door to the bedroom behind him as he saw his Dom unwrap the package to produce a phone.

“Is that?” John moved closer.

“Her phone,” Sherlock nodded.

John cleared his throat, not sure that he liked the strange look in his Dom’s eyes. “We still have guests.”

“Of course,” Sherlock put the phone back in the box and left it on the bed. John knew he would be obsessed with it later, but tonight it was Christmas.

Time passed with laughter and tales of Christmases past. Before John knew it his guests were leaving and Mrs. Hudson was heading downstairs to bed.

Soon, John was setting aside new plane tickets with shaking hands, thanking his Dom with a soft kiss. “How did you know?” he asked softly.

“I know so much about you, John,” Sherlock said. He carefully took the tickets away and put them in his wallet. “A trip to across seas will do us both some good and I know you will wish to reconnect with some of the American military men that you must have served besides.”

“Yes I,” John coughed slightly to clear his throat. “I would, thank you sir.”

Carefully, he turned and picked up his own present, giving it to his Dom with hands that still shook. The shaking only intensified as Sherlock began to open the wrapping. As soon as his Dom noticed, he stopped. “John,” Sherlock said. “Whatever this is, I know I will enjoy it. You would not disappoint me, you never will.”

John nodded, cheeks a bit hot as Sherlock finished unwrapping and opened the box, staring down at what lay there. To prevent himself from watching his Dom’s face, John too looked at the contents.

It was a leash, platinum and white gold to match John’s collar as best as he could find. The handle was soft leather and it was long, one of the longer ones John could find, though adjustable.

“The end is able to break off,” John said softly. “In case something were to… well if we were in the middle of a case it would choke me.”

“John,” Sherlock breathed, setting aside the gift and drawing John into his lap. “You would let me leash you in public?”

It wasn’t something they’d talked about, really, not after John had explained the reason for his dislike of exhibition or even many forms of public affection displays. But he knew that Sherlock sometimes felt the need to proclaim his ownership and this, this John thought he could give him. “Yes sir,” he whispered. “I would love to wear your leash.”

Sherlock rested their foreheads together. “Thank you,” he said softly. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” John echoed easily and closed his eyes into his Dom’s passionate kiss.

~.~.~.~

Mycroft always called at the most inconvenient times, John thought as he walked through the factory. He should probably refuse one of these days or people would start to suspect that he was Mycroft’s Sub instead of Sherlock’s.

“Mycroft!” John called as he walked into the factory room. “Come now, you know you can phone me instead of this rubbish.”

“There is no Mycroft here, Mr. Watson.” Out of the shadows stepped a dark-clothed figure. She lowered her hood and showed her face.

“But, you’re dead!” John blinked.

Irene Adler smiled and shook her head. “Not quite.”

John steadied himself. She’d faked her death, obviously, but why?

He didn’t get the chance to ask as the Domme raised her fingers and snapped. “Kneel for me, pretty boy.”

In another time, another place, John would have. The sensual power in the dominatrix’s voice was a hazy drug against his mind, pulling at his submissiveness to come forward.

But John wore Sherlock’s collar and he stood strong, glaring at her. “Do not give me orders.”

Irene titled her head. “Oh, a challenge,” she said and suddenly it was as if her whole body had perked up. She stepped closer to him and John found that he had trouble moving away as she reached him.

The problem with the most dominant of their species, he thought, was that it was so hard to resist them. Still, John would not give her the satisfaction of his submission. That was for his Dom and his Dom only.

From inside her dress, Irene drew a knife suddenly and John stiffened as if slowly arched against his neck. “Do you like this?” she asked in a purr. “Oh, you are a bit more fun than I’d thought, aren’t you?”

There were parallels in the way she looked at him and John’s fingers twitched, but he dare not move now with the threat of a knife against his neck.

“Yes,” Irene murmured and then her hand came striking to slash at his cheek. John’s head whipped to the side under the force of the hit, pain blooming on his cheekbone as he felt that his skin had been split open in a move similar to what his Dom had done to him before they’d first met this Dom.

John’s body acted on instinct, using the split second he had before any person not used to fighting would go on guard after an attack to slap away the knife in the Domme’s hand.

The metal went spinning away, landing on the floor with a clatter and skidding against the wall.

Irene looked startled, but she did not step out of his space. “You have spirit,” she said with raised eyebrows that slowly dropped back down. “Just like your Dom. I like that.”

“You have a lot of interest in my Dom,” John noted.

“Are you jealous, Mr. Watson?” Irene smiled coyly.

“Jealous?” John frowned, disliking both her tone and her form of address. He hadn’t been ‘mister’ since the days of the men who disbelieved a Sub could be a doctor.

Irene’s eyes flashed and her hand came to stroke even lower on his chest, but John submitted to one person and he refused to let himself be affected by her play. “How does Sherlock Holmes use you, I wonder?” she murmured. “Does he scream when he comes, or is he silent?”

“You don’t want me,” John told her, catching her hand before it could wander any lower and pushing it back against her chest. “You want my Dom.”

Irene’s smile turned into a frown. “Two Dominants cannot successfully have a relationship. But you, John,” she purred his name, “are no Dom.”

“Who said anything about a relationship?” Sherlock stepped out of the shadows and John breathed out. “I would kindly ask you to step away from my Sub, but I’m not sure you deserve my kindness.”

Irene exited his space so quickly that John though he might have burned her. Sherlock did not approach either of them, however, and John found a small fission of dread. He wondered if he should have pushed Irene off earlier.

“You have surprised me, Mr. Holmes,” Irene said, turning her coy smile towards him. John could tell it was slightly more nervous, if only in comparison to her earlier one.

“So it seems,” Sherlock frowned. “You enjoy the Doms the most,” he observed. “To dominate another Dominant, how much pleasure does that bring you?”

“It is delicious,” Irene agreed. “Subs are just so…” she flicked her eyes to John. “But not yours, I see.”

“My Sub,” Sherlock stressed, “is none of your concern.” He tilted his head. “You barely glanced at him at first, you realize. It makes it hard to believe you would be interested in him now.”

John’s shoulder hurt briefly as he tensed it. He wanted to go over and stand next to Sherlock, take comfort from his proximity, but Sherlock had not indicated that his movement would be welcome and so he simply watched the byplay between the two Doms.

“At first,” Irene frowned. “He was so obviously yours, of course.”

“Of course,” Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “But you’re wrong. It was not that he was ‘obviously mine’ as you put it. It was his submissiveness, how he attuned himself to my needs. And yet here, you saw that he would not do the same for you. That attracted you far more than you expected, but it ruined your original plan, didn’t it?”

Irene barely showed any surprise, John noted, but it was there in the twitching of her hands. “My original plan?”

“You wanted me to see John submit to you, to humiliate him and to get either myself, in response to his infidelity, or him in guilt to break off our relationship. But what then, Miss Adler? What was your next step?” Sherlock’s eyes were dark. He was angry, John realized, very angry.

It seemed that Irene didn’t see that as John did. But how could she? John had only ever seen his Dom this way when confronting Moriarty in the pool. What does that say, he wondered. Surely Irene and Moriarty weren’t connected…

But what if they were?

“You caught me,” Irene sighed. “Do you have any idea how attractive you are, Mr. Holmes, Sherlock? I read your Sub’s silly blog and I was entranced by the first picture I saw.”

“You were,” Sherlock nodded. “What you want to say is that your next step was to seduce me for yourself. But you cannot lie to me, Miss Adler.” He shook his head, a sardonic smile first on his lips. “It might have worked, you know. You are beautiful and I do have some masochistic tendencies, but I think you saw that.”

“I would love to tie you up and have my wicked way with you, Sherlock,” Irene stepped a bit closer, swinging her hips, and John could tell that she thought she’d won.

But Sherlock wasn’t having it. John knew his Dom, knew his stance when he was happy, horny, or even simply interested. Sherlock was none of these; he was furious.

“Except,” Sherlock held up a hand to stop her progression. “That you made one fatal mistake.”

“Mistake?” Irene pouted. “Oh, do tell.”

Sherlock walked then, closing the distance between them. His words were soft as he spoke them right into Irene’s face, but they traveled to John’s ears regardless. “Who was it, Irene,” he growled, “that gave you advice on how to handle me?”

Irene’s throat worked for a minute before she spoke. John wasn’t sure if she was scared, or aroused. “Moriarty.”

“That was your mistake,” Sherlock whispered harshly. “One that Moriarty himself made.”

Irene gasped as Sherlock bore down on her with none of the pleasurable sides of sadism. “What-”

“You touched my Sub,” Sherlock hissed.

There was a loud crack as Sherlock backhanded her, breaking skin at the cheekbone to match the wound that John sported now on both his cheeks. Irene went sprawling on the hard floor and John rushed forward, intent on stopping his Dom before he killed the woman.

But Sherlock was already turning towards him and he stepped forward, meeting John halfway and wrapping his arms tight around him. “John.”

“Sherlock,” John murmured, tucking his face into his Dom’s neck. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think I could hold her off and-”

“She drew a knife on you,” Sherlock observed. “At least she did not use it, or she would be dead.”

“I’m sorry,” John repeated.

“I know,” Sherlock kissed the top of his head. “Never let another hit you again.”

“I don’t think I can promise that,” John said honestly. “It happens a bit too often for my liking though.” He raised his head. “I only enjoy it for you, sir.”

Sherlock sighed. “Moriarty nearly killed you,” he said. “I could not bear to almost lose you again.”

“I am here,” John said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Later, they would watch Mycroft take Irene away and Sherlock would have him tighten the watch around Moriarty, to make sure he couldn’t make deals with anyone outside of his prison cell again. Later, too, Sherlock would take his sweet time bringing John to climax again and again. Maybe later than that, John would sleep in the tight arms of his Dom and feel safer than he ever had.

But for now, in this moment, it was Irene on the floor while John felt the warmth of Sherlock’s embrace, and that was enough.


	2. Chapter 2

The roof stretched around them, a sea of grey and concrete as Sherlock stared at Moriarty, hands clasped tightly behind his back. He knew if he was too rash here, too quick in his anger, then it would all be for nothing.

Moriarty sighed. “No, no no. This is too easy, this is too easy. There is no code!” he screamed and Sherlock saw in the twitch of his eye an answer to a question he’d wondered ever since the pool.

“I’m disappointed,” the man continued. “I’m disappointed in you,  _ordinary_  Sherlock.”

Yes, Sherlock thought. And you can’t stand for me to be ordinary. To be just another Dom, is that it? But he kept that to himself as Moriarty was continuing.

“Daylight robbery! You always want it to be clever, that’s your weakness,” he paced restlessly. “Time for the final act. Glad you chose a tall building. Nice way to do it.”

“Do it, do what?” Sherlock murmured. But he’d known this was coming, he just hadn’t quite been sure how. “Yes, of course. My suicide.”

“Genius detective proves to be a fraud,” Moriarty sneered. “I read it in the papers so it must be true. I love newspapers, fairytales.”

Sherlock wondered over to the side, looking over the ledge with a sort of fascination he’d always given to heights, to endings.

“And pretty grim ones too,” Moriarty finished softly.

“What makes you think I would do this?” Sherlock asked, because he had to be sure.

“If you don’t,” Moriarty hummed. “Then he will die.”

“John,” Sherlock closed his eyes.

“A bullet, through his heart this time,” Moriarty said. “Unless my people see you jump.”

Sherlock wondered, just briefly, if Moriarty would keep his word. If he could even allow himself to think that. The games were intertwined now, going so deep as to be almost un-seeable.

Almost.

“You killed Sebastian,” Moriarty’s face contorted. “It’s only  _fair_  that I return the favor. John will die, unless-”

“I kill myself, complete your story,” Sherlock intoned.

“You’ve got admit that’s sexier,” Moriarty said right up in Sherlock’s face. Sherlock continued to look over the edge, but his mind raced.

Moriarty turned away, whistling. “Only your death will call off the killers, I’m certainly not going to do it.”

Sherlock raised his eyes to the sky and then turned back to the roof, stepping away from the ledge to begin to circle to criminal mastermind. Moriarty froze in place, watching him with dark wide eyes. “You’re not going to do it?”

“You think you can make me?” there was a shiver of arousal in Moriarty’s voice. “Your brother and all the king’s men couldn’t make me.”

“I am not my brother,” Sherlock said, dangerously close to the criminal. “I am prepared to do anything. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you.”

Moriarty shook. “No, you’re ordinary. You’re on the side of the angels.”

“Oh, I may be on the side of the angels,” Sherlock said as John flashed through his mind- and after all wasn’t this what this was about? “But don’t think for one second that I am one of them.”

Sherlock saw the moment that it all clicked in Moriarty’s eyes. One part of him, a small part that he only let out for John, felt something for this criminal who hid his submissiveness, who never let himself loose control.

In Moriarty he saw someone he could have been, had he been born slightly different. If he hadn’t been a Dom, even if he hadn’t had John to show him the true nature of a strong Sub. Moriarty was jealous in a way he probably didn’t even realize, Sherlock thought, because he  _knew_ , he knew in that moment that Sherlock would be someone that could control he totally.

“Thank you,” Moriarty whispered. “Goddamn you.”

He drew a gun like Sherlock had known he would. For just one second, Sherlock opened his mouth, knowing that if he said so, if he told this Sub to stop, to kneel, then Moriarty would.

In that last second, Moriarty was his.

The gun shot went off loudly over the cool morning air and Moriarty’s body fell limp.

Sherlock inhaled deeply, and walked slowly to the ledge.

~.~.~.~

“Sherlock, sir!” John felt his throat close and he struggled to get his words out, to make his point, to stop this madness. “Please, oh God, please. You can’t, you just cannot do this to me. To  _us_.”

“I’m sorry, John,” Sherlock said into the phone. “Keep your eyes fixed on me,” he commanded.

And John had no other choice, but to obey. “Don’t, don’t, please!”

“Goodbye, John,” Sherlock whispered.

And then he fell.

“SHERLOCK!” John rushed forward and his collision with the bike was a haze of pain. He struggled to get up, to go help. People were surrounding the body, the body, oh God, the body.

“I’m a doctor,” John tried as they tried to stop him. “Please, he’s my Dom.”

They were pushing him away, pulling him back, the blood seeping on the concrete.

“God, no,” John begged.

God was silent to his cries and John collapsed into strangers’ arms as the paramedics lifted his Dom’s limp body onto a stretcher and rushed him away.

~.~.~.~

There’s a funeral, a small one. The congregation is silent, there are no words to be spoken because no words can say what Sherlock meant to them all.

After the funeral, Gregory Lestrade will go home to the wife that no longer loves him and he will let her pour him a glass of bourbon and he will speak for hours about the frustrations and the cases and the brilliance of the man who was no longer there. He will speak until he passes out and his wife will tuck him in bed and even sleep with him, offering the kind of comfort she hadn’t been able to give him in years.

After the funeral, Sally Donovan will go out the pub with Anderson and listen to him as he complains about the deceased and she will choke out a few words because she won’t help but feel guilty, feel that it was her fault there is a body under the ground with a tombstone marked: SHERLOCK HOLMES.

After the funeral, Mrs. Hudson will speak to the chatter of the telly as she makes tea, but she will make three cups and, once noticing, she will curse in the way she hadn’t done in years and she will cry until the combination of angry sorrow and medication puts her to sleep.

After the funeral, Molly Hopper will go back to Bart’s and check for the fifteenth time that everything had worked, that the plan had gone right. She will go through the motions, but the whole time her mind will be on the Sub with whom she’d become friends, whom she respected and admired despite the fact that he had what she never would, because she had thought that she would be happy that Sherlock had come to her with his plan, but there is no happiness in the sight of John’s broken heart, broken will, broken soul.

After the funeral, John Watson will be accosted by the press and asked to talk and talk and talk. He will speak, finally, when it all gets to be too much, and he will tell them: “Fuck off, you heartless bastards,” because they will write whatever they want anyways and he won’t be able to deal with the questions of hero or fraud, because he knows, he knows so well all that Sherlock was, and that will be what hurts the most, what has him sitting in front of his Dom’s grave. Because it is love and the loss of love that has him talking for hours to empty silence as morning dew seeps though his trousers and flowers begin to wilt.

After the funeral, Mycroft Holmes will see all this and he will dial his phone and he will talk to the person on the other side and explain all his observations in the most cutting way possible because despite everything his own heart will crack as he sees Dr. Watson’s shatter.

But at the funeral no words are spoken.

~.~.~.~

“Are you sure this is for the best, Sherlock?” Mycroft asked for the third time just this aggravating conversation.

The best? Sherlock snorted. So many possibilities, so many choices to make, but to protect John he would do anything. “Soon, I must be sure that Moriarty is truly finished.”

“Moriarty his dead. We both inspected his body,” Mycroft reminded him.

“I do not trust him not to have made plans beyond the grave, not yet,” Sherlock explained, again.

“We have both searched and searched,” Mycroft said. “It has been months. You are avoiding the real issue here.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and leaned against the wall of his rundown hotel room. “How is John?”

“He has no will,” Mycroft murmured. “It is… troublesome to see the once proud Dr. Watson reduced to this state.”

“I would rather troublesome than dead,” Sherlock murmured.

“Then you’d better come back to  _life_  quickly, my dear brother,” Mycroft told him. “He still wears your collar. I very much imagine he will wear it into his own death.”

Surely he didn’t mean, Sherlock opened his mouth, but his phone beeped and he cursed. Mycroft had hung up on him.

Sherlock swung back into his pace. John would be fine, he had to be fine. Nothing mattered except John’s protection.

John wouldn’t- not for him? But- no, Mycroft wouldn’t let him. Would he?

Sherlock snarled. He wanted to hurt someone, hear them scream as he flayed their flesh, but he resisted the urge. What he really wanted was to see his Sub, to hear John say his name and to watch the emotions, all those many emotions, play across his face as Sherlock took him down into pleasure.

John felt so much. So very much. And Sherlock had left him, he’d died.

“Godammit,” Sherlock cursed.

~.~.~.~

It wasn’t a special day, it was barely even day at all as John sat in his flat alone. He was kneeling on the floor at the foot of his own chair, breathing shallowly as he stared un-seeing into the distance.

Time meant nothing to him.

He’d known… he’d known after Moriarty that this would happen, that he would one day be ripped apart from his Dom. He just didn’t think it’d be so soon.

John closed his eyes.

The door opened faintly in the background. John shifted, not wanting to kneel before anyone else, not ever again, and stood. He didn’t turn to face whomever had come to check on him, he didn’t have the energy.

“I thought I was doing the correct thing.”

It was almost evil how much that voice sounded like his dead Dom.

John kept his eyes closed, his knees still weak.

“I thought- John, I don’t know how I can make this up to you.”

“Please, stop,” John coughed. “You sound, you sound like him. I can’t-”

Footsteps echoed on too empty walls until they’d reached in front of John. His eyes remained closed.

“It’s me John,” Sherlock said.

“You told me once that you weren’t a hero,” John said, but still he didn’t open his eyes. “It didn’t matter then.”

“What can I do to make this right?” His voice sounded broken, suddenly, as if he hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected John to care so much.

“I love you, Sherlock,” John inhaled quickly. “So much. You are my best friend, my Dom. I gave you my heart.”

“If I could give it back and save you the pain,” Sherlock began.

“No!” John interrupted him. “No, as much as God offered, no.”

“John,” Sherlock breathed. “Open your eyes.”

John did, soaking in the very real sight of his Dom’s face before him. He stumbled forward and Sherlock opened his arms wide to accept him.

And John didn’t care that about the how. Not then, though he would ask later and be amazed as he always was. No, all he cared about in that moment  _was_  the now, was the warmth of his Dom beneath his clasping hands as he clung tight. “Never leave me again, Sherlock, sir, never again.”

“I won’t, John,” Sherlock murmured. “I, it was for your safety-”

“I don’t fucking care,” John snapped, though it was muted by the fact that his head was still buried in Sherlock’s chest. “Never. Promise me. You can’t ever do that to me again, I won’t,” his fingers tightened, “I won’t survive it.”

Sherlock’s arms came then to hold him just as tight as John was and John let himself feel this moment, here in his Dom’s arms. In this moment, his heart healed slightly, old wounds from Afghanistan, from Moriarty’s kidnapping and the pool, from his trainer, from Sebastian Moran… they smoothed over as this little thing, this small thing became clear to him.

Despite everything, everything this man put him through, John loved Sherlock with everything he was. That did not change with death and in rebirth it only grew. Sherlock’s breath on his cheek was the first breeze of Spring and John let his own tears become the first rain.

And they would be more than fine.

“I promise.”


End file.
